Porcelain Phantoms
by xoVanilla-Bean
Summary: When the Westergaards come to make peace with Arendelle at the Midwinter Solstice, Hans encounters the sisters he attempted to kill for the first time. He hates everything about it, from the festivities, to the revelry, to the unwanted feelings that surface from the lack of courage and the power of conversation. [Hans/Elsa, oneshot]


A/N: I can't write short to save my life anymore. How many romance fanfics can I write that don't repeat each other? LOL. Inspired by Christmas, the garlands in my house, A Christmas Carol with Guy Pierce, and a present I got on Christmas day. It was a Frozen 2 hairbrush. It has Elsa and Anna on the back of it. You guys, I am a twenty-five year old. Why am I still a child? Also, I don't know how to title things.

Happy reading. All comments, reviews, love, hate are always appreciated and make me feel like I'm a queen in another universe.

**PORCELAIN PHANTOMS**

* * *

The Midwinter Solstice.

The time for cheer and merriment, peace and joy and love. A time for giving and receiving, hugs and laughter. Champagne and celebration. It's the time for forgiveness and beginning anew, to tell the people closest how much they mean.

Hans hates it. He hates everything about it. From the garland hanging from the rafters, to the lights shimmering along the rooftops, to the pine trees emanating their aroma in all the rooms of the castle.

The snow. The cold. The frosty plumes of his breath. The shortness of days, with night falling so quickly into the dark blanket of navy. It all irks him. It crawls under his skin, and he can't shake it.

It doesn't help that his family has been groveling for the past year from his mistakes. Now, in their grandest show of gratitude and respect, they have all come back to the kingdom of Arendelle to remove the last of their grievances and to put it all to rest for one final time.

It's all a political grandstand, Hans thinks. All pomp and circumstance, but zero substance. Well, perhaps some substance. His parents and twelve brothers have been schmoozing and bowing in deference more than any royal family should. They've already given Arendelle half the kingdom of the Southern Isles—including tax reductions, a year's worth of free crops, use of their shipping vessels and blueprints of their finest yachts. It makes Hans a bit sick. His brothers have to elbow his side and kick his shins a few times to get him to surrender some semblance of respect to the ladies of Arendelle. Hans knows well enough about faking it. He smiles for everyone, the exhausted anger and annoyance thinly veiled behind his teeth.

"You should be happy they even allowed us to come here, let alone allowing _you_," Klaus had said, his eldest brother who is almost twenty years his senior. His mustache looks as old as Hans' uncle. Hans thinks being so much older, he'd be somehow…more mature.

Rhoam, Dal, and Frederik had given him enough grief about it the whole boat ride to Arendelle.

"How in the world are you going to look in their eyes?" Leif had asked, maliciously. He's six years older, the eleventh brother.

Dal said, "You're not going to shit your pants, are you? We're embarrassed enough as it is."

Rhoam, the sixth brother, snorted. "Please. Hans hasn't talked to a real woman in eight months. There's no telling how he'll react to talking to both a queen and a princess."

Jaako laughed. He always had the most humor out of all thirteen of them, though he was one of the eldest, being the third. "Maybe we'll see him blush! They're both as powerful as they are beautiful. Hell, I might even blush. Too bad Queen Anna is about to be married and Princess Elsa is…well. Androgynous? Eh. Maybe they have a cousin!"

Fredrik rolled his eyes. "Always thinking about potential pursuits, aren't you Jaako?"

"I'm a simple man with simple pleasures," Jaako answered, flicking Fredrik between the eyes. Fredrik yelped before knuckling him in the arm.

Alek sighed, being three years older than Hans and the twelfth brother, he always seemed a bit more levelheaded. "You guys…" That was all he managed before Jaako wrapped his arm around him in a headlock. "Hey! What gives, Jaako!"

Hans watched them all laugh and sneer at one another the rest of the ride, glancing down at himself and attempting not to feel the burgeoning sense of doom.

That's the thing about it. He absolutely hates the aspect of the upcoming confrontation. He smiles and acts aloof more than half the time, but he despises owning up to his disappointments.

It is the first time he's been in the presence of the royal sisters since the time he tried to freeze Anna's heart and behead Elsa. From the time they've arrived to now has been a game of shifty eyes and false smiles. Leif had been right—he had a hard enough time looking at Anna and Elsa's faces, much less their eyes. Fortunately with so many bodies, it had been easy to hide, to cloak himself behind whichever brother was close enough.

The sisters had been civil and every bit the engaging royals they've been rumored to have become. Anna's hair is shorter now, but not by much. She had worn it down, with it cleanly pinned back from her face. Gone are the braided pigtails that made her look so innocent and naïve. She has transformed from her cocoon of a princess to a now evolved queen, and Hans still needs to get used to it.

Elsa looks different, too. She's still a queen, that much remains true. She wears her hair down, as well. It seems an untamed mane, long and thick. Her eyes glint, and her smiles are much less measured and hesitant. There is something...free, about her. Free and wild.

A queen of an enchanted forest. She looks like a fairytale book.

At dinner, his family is chatty. They talk about everything government related. The economy, the trade, the relationships with allied kingdoms, teasing about which brothers are unwed and who enjoy the outdoors. _Alek would love to be a king of a forest, wouldn't you darling?_ His mother mentions with no ounce of shame. Alek turns red as a beet and chokes on his roasted potatoes.

The ladies, for their part, laugh good-naturedly.

Hans is not mentioned, nor does he speak up at the table. There is cowardice inside of his throat and a simple blockade of hesitation. Never did he think he'd allow himself to be labeled as a coward—because he's not—but neither is he able to say he has any courage, either.

He has been strategically placed at the end of the long table, on the opposite end of where Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff had taken their seats. He can barely see them. Out of sight, out of mind, he supposes, partially paying attention to the idle chatter. Only Elsa's face can be noticed in his line of sight when he dares to look up from his dinner plate.

Dal says something in the middle of dinner. "So, Queen Anna, what did it feel like usurping your sister's throne?"

Hans' mother gives him one of her legendary glares. Dal has always been an idiot. Hans winces at the words, but surprisingly most of the table chuckles.

"Oh, I guess it would have been triumphant had I wanted it," Anna says, smiling and taking the question with grace. "But I wasn't power hungry or on the verge of murder, so it wasn't a big deal."

Hans can't see Anna's face, but by the light tone of her words, he is sure she is glancing at his family with knowing amusement. The rest of the family chuckles, and Hans is embarrassed that he is embarrassed. He runs his left hand across his face, and at that moment, his eyes dart across the table to Elsa.

They catch eyes abruptly, and Hans is caught off guard. He looks away as quickly as he can, but in that second he noticed that she was not chuckling or smiling with the rest of them. She was only observing him, watching him, her face inscrutable with the distance between them. As he pushes the food around on his plate, he feels the ponderous pull of shame fill his belly, and he hates it. He hates this. Never has he felt so...little.

Now, he grumbles under his breath, chugging the rest of the champagne in his glass. It tastes bitter sliding down his throat. Standing alone outside on the second floor balcony, Hans is perhaps grateful for only one thing: the size of his family. Funny, how it used to be the extreme opposite. Now, it's not easy to notice when one member of them is gone. He has slipped away seemingly undetected, and while the castle opened for the Midwinter festivities for the entire Arendelle community after the end of dinner, it will be even harder for him to be found. He absorbs the reprieve from loneliness and hopes no one attempts to bother him. He's in an ornery mood, anyway. He's sure he'd unwittingly ruin the waiving of grievances if any of the Arendelle staff tries to talk to him. He places the empty glass flute along the rail of the balcony and readies himself to find another place to lurk. He can't stay in one spot for long, and now that he hears the tumult of voices becoming louder, that only means more and more people, and more and more people to avoid.

He turns and goes cold. Elsa is standing in the threshold of the balcony entrance. She closes the doors behind her, and the voices are stemmed and muffled.

Hans is smart enough to know when he's being backed into a corner. It's either face her wrath or jump off the balcony and get away with a fractured ankle. He guesses it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. He gazes at it longingly before Elsa breaks the silence between them.

"You haven't said one word to my sister and I this entire visit," she says.

Hans stares out to the view of Arendelle, lit up with warm fires and happy lights.

"I didn't think you'd want to hear what I had to say," he says after a long moment.

He hears her heels click along the stone, and she comes to stand beside him. There is at least five paces of space between where her hands rest along the balcony and him.

"I guess not," she says. She glances out to Arendelle, following his gaze. They don't look at one another.

They are quiet for a minute longer.

"Are you going to apologize?" She asks.

"I thought I already had."

He feels her eyes on him. "Not with words. Not today."

He takes a deep breath, exhaling and closing his eyes.

"No, not today, but my family sent you notice of my penance. At least, they sent it to Queen Anna. I'm not sure they were able to send it to a deliverable address where you tend to reside, Elsa," he says, unkindly.

"I heard," she says, her voice now containing an edge. "I would like to see it."

"It's not for the faint of heart."

"Good. I'm not."

At her words, he glances at her. Her hair is still wild, and her eyes are sharp. He finds that he believes her against his better judgment.

He glances back to the city. "It was either my head, an eye, or a hand. They all played a role in the actions, or so the law states," he shrugs. "I didn't want to lose my head. Losing an eye would have made me quite unattractive."

Elsa sneers at his words, and it isn't so unlike his brothers'. "Still so vain."

He half smiles, glancing down at his right hand. He runs his fingers over the porcelain.

"Perhaps. I must hang on to something."

He unbuttons his cuffs and rolls them up his arms. He unlatches the buckles around the midline of his forearm. He peels off the porcelain hand. It is a brilliant ivory white, mimicking the gloves that he wears. It is too extravagant for what they symbolize. Too expensive for their utter uselessness. No one would notice unless they knew or watched him, keeping his right arm always at his side, never using it for utensils, never reaching for objects. A paralyzed and ineffectual limb, now.

"You know why everyone feels safe with me freely roaming the castle. It is because I am useless with a sword and uncoordinated with everything else."

Elsa stares down at the loosened, prosthetic hand in his left.

"Have you not learned how to use your left hand? You've had ample time," she states.

He smiles wryly. Had she only known how angry he has been, unable to make legible scrawl to form letters, unable to cut his own food, failing to relearn the most simple actions. "Not yet. I've been...lacking inspiration, I suppose."

She looks at the healed, scarred stump of his right arm. "You should have chosen your head. What's an arm without a hand?"

He looks at her, and they stare at one another. Her face is a still pond, calm, quiet, foreboding.

"What's a body without a head?" he asks.

"They're both useless, aren't they?"

He tries to smile but it falters. He breaks their stare and looks upon a few people dancing in the streets. A light sprinkling of snow is beginning to fall.

"Why did you not talk, tonight, at our dinner?" she asks.

Hans goes about the slow process of clasping his hand back on his right arm. As many times as he has performed this action, it has not made it any easier. He frowns in concentration, and he wants to curse whoever invented the contraption to be so difficult to finagle.

"I did not need to talk. There are too many of us as it is."

She rests her chin on her palm, leaning her elbow on the balcony railing. "There are many of you, yes, but their opinions are not your own."

"I hardly expect you to be curious about my opinion, Elsa."

"Why not?"

He scoffs, almost laughing. "Oh, I don't know, because I tried to kill you?"

She levels him with another stare, and he looks away again automatically. "On the contrary, I think that's plenty reason to be interested about your opinion, Hans."

He finally finishes the last buckle on his prosthetic. He absently contemplates how absurd it looks.

"That's flattering," he says. "Nobody's wanted to know my opinion before."

She peers at him, her lips screwing up. They're the shade of plums, dark and purple like a bruise.

"Are you being sarcastic?"

At this, he really does laugh. It's a small chuckle, two breaths at most, but it unwinds his overwhelming sensations of doom and destruction for a brief moment.

"A little, I think," he says. He shakes his head, suddenly needing to be away from this Elsa. She's severe, her questions needling, and her entire body mocks him. He'll never admit he's frightened of her, but her eyes are like knives, peeling him open slowly, with no expression lingering on her face long enough to decipher. He doesn't want to be here, and alcohol sounds like his best bet.

"Listen, I'd love to keep chatting with you, but I need more champagne and less company," he states, pushing off the balcony and turning to the closed glass doors leading back into the castle. "I'm sure you understand."

She turns to watch him go. "You still haven't apologized."

"Haven't I?" He waves his right arm. "Or is this not good enough for you?"

Her eyes splinter him. "Not even close."

He pauses with his left hand on the doorknob. "Well, I don't know what to tell you. Take it up with my parents. Write a petition. I don't...I don't really care anymore."

Then he opens the door and manages to slip through masses of bodies to the closest liquor table.

* * *

It's the most alcohol he's imbibed since...ever. He realizes what he's doing, but there's too much joy here. There's too much of his brothers getting along. Too much of his parents holding conversations with Anna and Kristoff and Elsa. There's too many members of Arendelle, who dance and chat and show one another attention and love.

Hans stays away from all of it. He slithers to a bench in the back gardens of the castle, his eyes swimming and the bourbon in his glass sloshing around the one giant ice cube sitting in the middle of it. He's going to hate himself in the morning, he thinks as he keeps taking swigs of his drink. He squints towards the bush hedges in front of him, strewn with lights both white, green, and red. A few of the white lights twinkle like stars. There's an incredibly massive ice sculpture to his left, surrounded by a marble fountain that shines and reflects all the revelry of the Midwinter Solstice. Hans sighs, drinks the rest of his alcohol, and leans his head back against the seat of his bench until he feels his lips and tongue become fat with numbness, and his left arm mimics the sensation of his right—deadened and heavy.

He stares at the stars until they blur into a string of lights above his head.

"What are you doing out here?"

He jolts, cursing. He looks over to his side and sees Elsa sitting there, her arms and legs both crossed, her legs facing away from him. Even in his drunken stupor, he can read her protective, wary body language.

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asks, semi-rhetorical. He rubs at his eyes but she remains seated beside him.

"I don't know what joke it would be," she says.

He groans. "Why can't I just be left alone?" He asks, dropping his empty glass to the ground. "I just...want to be alone. Preferably forever."

"Really? Don't you want to rule a kingdom?"

He grins up at the night sky. "Funny. Because yes. And no. To be honest, I just want my record expunged and to not work for my brothers."

She stares at him, so quiet for so long he almost forgets she's there.

"Isn't your record technically expunged now? Being a prince and having your hand cut off?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Maybe. Not sure what's on public records, but with my family it will never be forgotten. I'll go down in infamy by being the one brother who went insane. Who wanted something so unattainable, he let greed get the best of him. Same old sad story that's written about every few generations or so."

"You know..." she starts. "Getting drunk at the first function with Arendelle after the fiasco you pulled doesn't necessarily show much...growth in your potential of maturity and learning from your mistakes."

He raspberries. "Is that what my parents call it? Or, no, Rhoam. He's eldest. He knows more than all of us. Or maybe Dal. They're both asshats, but Dal most of all."

Elsa shakes her head, and he can still feel her eyes on him. He wants to bring his shoulders up and flick her presence away from him.

"No, not your family. It was my own thought."

"Oh, right, Princess Elsa disappointed in the behavior of Prince Hans yet again. Nothing redeemable to see here, sorry everyone."

She frowns at him. He rubs his hands along his pants, dusting off his nerves. She makes him anxious, and he hates that, too.

"What do you want?" he asks eventually, no longer able to take her silence. "Because if you want my head, I'm sure you could slice it off on your own."

"Hans..." she trails uncertainly. "I would love to have your head on a pike. Don't mistake my compassion for kindness."

"I would never," he mumbles.

"That being said," she continues. "I am surprised about this whole visit. Your family does not acknowledge you as I believed they might. They skirt over the issue, but they are trying their best to assuage us with overly generous gifts."

"Yeah, so?" he asks, wishing for another bourbon. His knee jumps, and he closes his eyes. The darkness behind his eyelids is welcoming. It is much better than the blaring lights all around him.

"I'm only saying that it's...hard to speak to them about the elephant in the room."

"Eh. Yeah. Listen," he sighs, opening his eyes and regretting it, the lights making him squint. "They all wish it didn't happen. After taking my hand, they knew it wouldn't be enough, but they hoped it could start to be. We have a lot of pride, you know. If they could, they would sweep me under the rug and stack a hundred good deeds on top of what I did to forget it ever happened. They even gave me this stupid hand _because_ it looks like nothing happened." He grimaced, picking at the buckles on it. "It's porcelain. Isn't that the most idiotic thing you've ever heard? Who knows how much this cost them. They should have given me a wooden peg. Or nothing! Not as if either would do anything helpful." The buckles loosen enough for him to jerk it off, staring at it with a disdainful sneer. "They probably gave it to me as a joke, mocking me. It's as useless as everything else in my life right now."

He weighs it in his left hand and throws it unceremoniously over the bush hedges. The arc of the throw is atrocious, and it further enrages him at how uncoordinated and drunk he is.

Elsa stiffens, her body coming forward. "Hans, what are you doing? You'll need that back."

"No I won't. Let wolves eat it. I don't care."

Elsa stares at him again. "It seems like you don't care about much of anything."

"Astute of you," he says, leaning backwards and closing his eyes again. The rage is blunted, and he feels better now that the prosthetic weight is gone. The buckles felt like a cage.

"You're as petulant as a child."

"Yep. That's me. A child."

"You really don't have to act this way, Hans. It's the Midwinter Solstice."

"Does it matter what day it is? Nothing changes. Besides, you probably enjoy seeing me like this. Making a fool of myself. Not making friends or making nice. Being standoffish and getting drunk. I might even piss on your hedges."

Elsa's lips lift a little. "While it is fun to watch you be so miserable, it's also...strange. I'm not sure what I was expecting from you during this visit."

"A cocksure attitude? Smirking everywhere at everyone? Yeah, I thought about it, but I'll let you in on a secret." He leans to the side, closer to her, and her eyes are wide as she follows him. "I'm a coward. I'm even desperately afraid to be sitting by you right now. There, secret's out." He leans back before deciding better of it and standing up.

"Now, I'm gonna go get more of...a drink. So, bye."

He turns and trips a little on the grass. He catches himself before he face plants.

Then he hears her laugh. It's just a gentle puff, light on the air. It's different than his brother's laughter, somehow, then he realizes that's probably because its coming from a lady.

"If you stick around, I'm sure you'll witness me vomit if you're interested in that kind of thing," he says.

Her voice still in a lilt from her laugh, she says, "I may just do that, Hans. Not that I'm interested in vomit, but because it's you vomiting."

"By all means, hold no punches."

He looks back at her to see her smile with her plum, bruise colored lips and shadowed eyes. In his drunken mind, he admits she's a pretty thing. Her complexion is light and lined with dark colors. The contrast is stark and striking. She knows what she's doing.

"Alek is probably going to ask for your hand in marriage," he blurts, only realizing what he let slip after the fact. "Uh...sorry. Just thought I'd...warn you."

She stares at him, her smile disappearing and her posture turning rigid.

He continues, trying to fill the dreadful silence. "He's alright. Immature like all of us, but I'm sure you'd be able to whip him into shape. Just stare at him like you're staring at me and he'll...probably kneel at your feet every day." He glances away from her to the hedges. "I don't know. Anyway. Give him a chance, I guess. He's not...well, he's not me, at any rate."

She continues in her reticence and Hans doesn't know why he feels rooted to the spot, why he suddenly can't leave to go get his drink. Eventually his legs wobble, and he realizes he wants to run and get lost in the maze of hedges. He spies the entrance to it off to the right. Seems like a good idea.

"Okay, then," he states, unnecessarily. He turns, almost trips again, and retreats through the grand, open back patio of the castle to retrieve a glass of bourbon, or a bottle—whichever is easiest. Then he'll find the entrance to the courtyard hedges and get lost forever and never have to own up to anyone ever again.

* * *

"Seems like a good idea," he mumbles lowly, fingers brushing along the immaculate lines of the tall hedges. It's all illuminated in the glow of small lights, tiny little fires inside tiny little kerosene lanterns. He wonders how it's possible to have such small flames strung along vegetation without breaking the glass and catching everything on fire.

"Must be magic," he mumbles again, answering his own question. "Magic. How stupid."

He reaches out to touch one, letting it droop along his index and middle fingers. It emanates hardly any warmth at all. It's almost shocking in its lukewarm sensation.

He continues walking along, attempting to walk straight. He eventually comes upon an opening in the maze, holding another statue. It is of two royals he's not sure he knows. A past generation of a king and queen, he muses, taking a swig from his bottle. He can still feel the burn of it sliding down his throat, settling in his belly. He probably should have eaten more at dinner, but it's too late, now. He sits against the hedge wall, staring up at the statue, covered in a light glow of lights like everything else. It's not as bright here, and that's a welcoming thing. So is the quiet. The voices of the castle are much less pronounced within the insulation of the maze, each wall a barrier to the world.

A good idea, indeed.

After some time, he hears voices that are markedly closer to his position. At first, he thinks he's dreaming—sleeping with eyes open for as clear as his mind feels. Then he only hears one voice, and suddenly silence again. He sighs and settles his head back against the pillow of the hedge.

"Have you thrown up, yet?"

Hans jolts against the sudden words, and he moans at the rush to his head, his eyes spinning. He rubs his eyes and looks to his side to see Elsa standing there. Her arms are crossed over her chest like a shield.

"Why does this keep happening tonight?" he asks the world, thinking about standing but deciding his seat is much more comfortable. His head is already spinning, anyway. Standing will make him fall over. Or keel over and die. On second thought…

"I saw you come and hide in here, earlier. I wondered if you were still," she answers.

"Well, you found me. Surprise." He takes a long draught of bourbon, and Elsa stares at him.

"That's an entire _bottle."_

He wipes his cuff over his wet lips. "Yep. Want some?"

Her mouth curls in answer. He shrugs. "More for me, then."

"How did you manage it?"

"Ah, you know," he drawls. "I found a lady bartender, told her how desperately in need I was for alcohol and escape. I may have winked. Smiled. I don't know. She complied."

They are silent for several moments longer, and Hans notices the snowflakes that have been falling this evening are becoming thicker and fatter. He reaches out his right arm out of old habit and laughs belatedly when a snowflake lands on his stump.

"Do you feel the cold?" he asks. "Or does all that magic inside you keep you warm?"

"I don't," she says, voice quiet against the chill of the air. "I feel the deep coldness from internal freezing, like what you forced Anna to endure," she says, heat filling her words like a low simmering kettle. "My magic doesn't keep me warm, but it protects."

"Hm," he hums. "It protects you. Is that why you're here, then, in the courtyard maze with me? Because it protects you?" He blearily watches the descent of each icy snowflake in front of him. They melt as soon as they hit the grass, the atmosphere not low enough in temperature for the snow to stick. "Were you tasked with keeping tabs on me?"

"Neither," she answers. "I'm here of my own free will."

He snorts. He runs his fingers in the damp grass, the sensations blunted from alcohol. "What could have possibly compelled you to want to be here?"

"Because I want to see if I can understand you," she says. "People say it's a lost cause, but I don't quite believe that yet."

"Why?" he asks, genuine curiosity filling his words. "It is because I'm too pretty to be crazy?"

She raises a brow at him. "No. It's because you're hiding like a coward in a maze."

He blinks, resting back into the hedges. "Alright. Well. I'm flattered you want to _understand_, but there's nothing _to _understand. There's no mystery. I am merely a prince who wants to drink and go home to a castle I hate. Pretty simple, don't you think?"

She frowns at him. "What about…remorse?"

"What about it?" he sighs. He is quickly becoming tired of the conversation.

"Do you feel any remorse at all?"

"For what? This?" he gestures to the entire world. "That's a very loaded question."

Elsa scowls at his sarcasm, and he smiles, enjoying it.

"You certainly hold your drink well. You know what I mean."

In answer, he takes a large gulp of bourbon. "I feel remorse for my lost hand. Does that count? Life is now infinitely harder without it."

Elsa's scowl deepens. "What about attempted murder? Do you feel remorse for _that_?"

He doesn't answer for a moment, but he's really stalling for dramatic effect. He's known the answer to that question for a very long time. "No."

He can nearly feel her bristle. "Why don't you?"

He lolls his head around to look sideways at her. "What's the saying? You try, you fail, you try again. Or try a different way. If I hadn't tried, I'd never have known."

"What are you saying? You'd try again?"

He grins. "I'm a fool, but I'm not that stupid. It may shock you, but I'm not ready to die."

"But if you had the opportunity…you would?"

Such an interesting line of questioning. Hans thinks about it, deciding to remain noncommittal.

"Maybe if inspiration strikes."

Her brows fall down over her eyes. They are bright with her annoyance and anger. They are pale blue, as blue as the early morning sky, and as glaring as the first rays of sunshine.

"You aren't making sense."

"Not the first time I've been told that."

"You don't want to die…but if you could get away with it, you would try?"

"I don't have anything to lose except my life, depending on how I'm feeling about the gamble. But today? Now?" He stares up at the inky, obscured night sky overhead. "No."

She stares at him for a long time, her eyes as sharp as her ice. "I don't believe you."

That surprises him. He blinks at her. "What?"

She shrugs. "I don't. As much as you've blustered around this evening, drinking, bemoaning people and your life. You feel more than you want to, so you're drinking to feel nothing."

"Why would I do something so cliché?"

"Because you're unoriginal."

Her words are so forthright, it pulls an immediate laugh out of him. "Whether that's true or not, I'm not drinking out of remorse. I'm drinking out of pity for myself. Much different."

"That's…childish. And sad."

He raises his bourbon bottle in salute. "Childish and sad. Added to the list, right besides disappointment, failure, and coward. What revelations, tonight!" He drinks to his own cheers.

"You should slow down with that, Hans," she says softly. "It will make you very sick, and we both have the final send-off, tomorrow."

Oh, yes, the send-off. When they both look into each other's eyes, clasp hands, smile broadly, and fool their respective countries that all is well and good between everyone and everything. And if their people are obtuse enough to believe that, Hans doesn't and will never want to rule them.

Not that he will. But if he could—he wouldn't. He'd rather lead a pack of competent thieves that can see through political bullshit rather than a group of people dumb enough to be herd like cattle.

"I've heard having a puce complexion goes well with my hair color."

"Stop deflecting," she states in a tone that brokers no argument. Or would, if he cared about facing her wrath. "Give me the bottle."

He cradles it to his chest. "But—I haven't even drank half of it."

"Give it." She holds out a hand. He stares at it like it's a bear trap.

"No."

"Yes."

He goes to stand in an unbalanced flailing of limbs. Some of the bourbon sloshes out, and he regrets it. He places his mouth on the opening to keep any more from falling out. He drinks it until he chokes and coughs. Elsa takes advantage and jerks it out of his hand.

"W-wait," he breathes, continuing to cough. "I—I need that."

"You don't need anything," she says, and just like his porcelain hand, she weighs the bottle in her grasp. She cocks back her arm.

She throws it somewhere into the lost abyss of the maze. He hears the telltale sign of the _thud_ and hopes the glass didn't crack. He utters a low groan, rubbing his face with his left hand.

"That was really unnecessary," he growls, the anger blunted by the swimming in his head. "I didn't even—I didn't even threaten you. Or…make any untoward advances."

"Because those are the only two things that warrant any type of punishment," she mutters under her breath, rolling her eyes. "Hans, you are not being at all reasonable."

"Yes! Right! Because I'm still drunk! I don't want to be reasonable. Why are you still here, again? Haven't I given you plenty of explanations for you to leave me alone?" He might be sulking or pouting. He's gone far enough not to care, and even he'll admit later that that's a feat of otherworldly proportions.

Elsa only sighs at him, placing her hands on her hips. It's a different stance than she's had all evening. She is not completely closed off from him.

"Maybe you would have had better _reasons_ had you been sober and _reasonable_," she says. "Now, come on. We have to finish the maze, or else we'll be cursed for seven years."

Hans, bewildered, laughs humorlessly. "Seven years? Why?"

"It's an old superstition."

"Well, I'm already cursed. Do two curses negate one another? Could I un-curse myself if I don't finish the maze?"

Elsa merely glares at him. "No. Now, follow me."

"Or will I be cursed with double the intensity?" He raspberries. "Wouldn't you want that? I'd probably lose another limb. Or be wheelchair bound. Or blinded."

She sighs, shaking her head. She continues walking, and Hans doesn't know up from down, much less how to find his way out. He can sit and be frosted with snowflakes and stay lost in here forever. His family wouldn't notice his absence. He'd fall asleep here, and in the morning…he's not sure. He'd miss the send-off. Yes. That's important. He'd miss it and all would be just fine if he could do that.

As if sensing his hesitation, Elsa waves a hand, and his right wrist is collared with a band of ice. It burns his skin, and he's shocked at how potent the sensation is. It's a shame he may already be sobering. She connects it to a leash of ice, and she holds it like she's holding a dog. Which, he guesses, is accurate. He laughs.

"You're coming," she says. She pulls and he trips forward behind her.

"This is weird," he announces.

"I don't care," she answers. He's thrown into the fate of staring at her back, continuously jerked along by her ice when he doesn't walk quickly enough.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Who says I'm helping you?"

Hans blinks. "Oh. You're leading me to my death, aren't you?"

Her shoulders rise and fall in front of him. "If only I could say I was."

"That doesn't give me much to go on."

She glances over her shoulder to him. Her eyes, as cool-colored as they are, sear him to the depths of his inky, black soul.

"You're full of bravado and false confidence, Hans. You run from consequence. You admitted that you're afraid of me—I'm not sure if that's because of my powers or because I make you uncomfortable. Regardless," she says, shaking her head. "You're a bit more…harmless than I thought you would be."

Hans squints, but his head remains fuzzy. "That doesn't…sound like a compliment, but I think I should take it like one."

She chuckles lightly. "I guess I'm saying you're human. I've seen it, tonight. I was expecting someone more…" she trails.

"…evil?" he offers.

"…yes," she says softly.

His stomach roils with an odd, acute disappointment. He stares at the ice hanging around his wrist. It reminds him of a noose. Strangely enough, he's beginning to dislike this feeling of drunkenness. While physical sensations are blunted, emotions seem to amplify at inopportune moments.

"You're not alone in that," he states. "You sure you don't want to leave me in here?"

"If you keep asking me, I might be inclined to say yes."

They walk on, and Hans regards the view of her back. His right hand begins to have its phantom sensations—those ugly, hopeful, burning things that make him think he's clenching his fist, like he had been in a bad dream and his hand will rematerialize at any moment.

It's a strange position she's allowing him. She's letting him walk behind her. She's vulnerable. If that doesn't prove she thinks he's a sad lump of skin and bones, he doesn't know what does.

Eventually, the maze opens up to a larger expanse of wet, slightly frosty and manicured grass and a large fountain. It matches every other thing he's seen tonight, strung up with little lantern lights, emanating a glow of soft, ethereal proportions. Hans stares up at it, not realizing Elsa has also stopped her trek.

"My parents, when they were younger. My mother, saving my father. We had it erected after learning the truth of our past," she says.

It's a heroic pose. A wild girl, hands spread across a boy, staving off some invisible kind of madness. Hans squints and tilts his head.

"She looks like…" he trails, a sudden flush of shame coming upon him. Stupid drink.

"She looks like what, Hans?" she asks, looking back toward him. Her eyes narrow in examination, and he feels trapped.

"She looks like…Anna did," he says, and the silence blankets them. They both may be thinking of the moment, his sword slicing through the air, cutting through the winter storm, his sword shattering under Anna's frozen might. He certainly is.

"Then I guess we have strong women in our family, don't we?" Elsa says, after a time. Her tone is inscrutable, but Hans thinks he's finished trying to stay up with her emotions. It's too much work. He's already beginning to feel the future breaching of a headache.

"I'd say so," he says. Stronger than him. Perhaps that's why he's so…

He hates to think of the word _frightened, _but there it is, floating around like a snowflake. He scowls. He tugs on the ice around his wrist. He sighs.

Elsa glances over to him. "I'm surprised you agree."

He shrugs, sullenness coming over him. "Funny, we agree on something."

She stares at him for moments longer, and it feels like a very, very long time. Hans shifts his weight. "I know I'm handsome, but…"

She shakes her head. "Still deflecting. I wanted to ask. What jobs do you perform at your family's castle?"

So he tells her, more than he should, probably, but babbling seems to help with the discomfort crawling over his arms, sprinting up his back. He tells her about all the little errands his brothers force upon him, being part of crews that send and receive foodstuffs, textiles, metals. Surveying farms. Breaking in new horses. All the things that keep him out of diplomacy. He's not allowed at the adult table that brokers _quality judgment, _and he supposes he might be bitter about it, but that's his fault alone.

"Do you enjoy any of it?"

He doesn't have to think for long. "Sailing. I like sailing."

Half of the reason he does is because it feels like freedom. But the homeland is always his anchor, pulling him back to shore.

They end up sitting on the lip of the fountain, underneath the stone immortalization of her mother and father. Her question seems to open up several more. He asks her about the Enchanted Forest he hears so much about, and she tells him. She tells him of the Northuldra tribe, of their traditions, bonfires, anthems. She tells him about the winding pathways in the forest, how it seems to breathe when you walk through it in the early dawn of the morning. They are peaceful people, and it is a simpler life in the woods. Politics still abound, of course, but nothing like the severely formal seat of a throne.

Hans glances up at Elsa's young mother, right behind him. "Sounds nice, actually. It sounds…" Oddly, it sounds like something he would like. He shakes his head. "It sounds like you enjoy it."

"I do," she says, and she follows his gaze. "She would probably be proud of this moment."

Hans looks at her. "Your mother? Because of how ironic this is, us chatting about our lives like we're friendly?"

She chuckles a bit. "Yes. For me talking civilly to someone I once vowed I would hate forever."

He runs his stump along the ice on his left wrist. "We keep this up, maybe the send-off won't feel like walking barefoot over coals."

She smiles, her teeth as white as pearls. "Maybe it won't."

They continue on, and they make their way out of the maze some time later. Hans isn't sure how long it takes them—perhaps five minutes. Perhaps five hours. Everything seems a bit hazy. When they pass through the threshold into the back patio, on the opposite entrance, Hans has to blink a few times to regain his bearings.

Elsa releases his wrist, the ice breaking and disappearing. He flexes his fingers. They stare at one another silently for a pause, and Elsa's chest rises in a breath.

"Well, we will no longer be cursed," she says.

Hans' lips pluck up. "Not you, at least."

She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it, hesitating. It makes him uneasy, so he plasters on a wider grin.

"I need to replace that bourbon."

"You really shouldn't."

"Yeah…well…" he waves it off. "Thanks for uh…" he gestures to the maze. "I think. I'll know tomorrow if I should have stayed in there."

Her eyes follow him as he flings himself back into the castle, and her stare is like a knife in his back. Sharp, unflinching, annoying. It bothers him.

It must be the lingering thread, that visceral sensation amplified by the revelry and alcohol, because throughout the rest of the night, his eyes always seem to hook on her in the middle of the crowds. Dancing, chatting with others, surrounded by people or all alone, watching Anna dance with Kristoff and a few other lucky patrons of the evening.

Their eyes catch once, across the room, and he's not sure what he feels when it happens. It's a bright, fresh dart. A whip of wind hitting a mast on a ship. A blistering spray of sea salt from a wave.

Hope? He wonders. He stares back into the glass he's drinking from, the caramel brown of bourbon a liquid gold under the chandelier lights.

Hope, he thinks again, the surety of it filling him with dangerous abundance.

* * *

It takes Alek six months. Letters, back and forth between him and Elsa, have been a continuous thing over the past months, and Hans never hears any end of it.

"She loves something called Lily-of-the-valley. It's a flower."

"She likes the dawn and the _early morning dew._ That's poetic."

"Her favorite color is indigo. Not purple, not blue. That's very specific."

"The reindeer sing. That's uncanny."

Alek always has some kind of remark or opinion about everything. It makes Hans want to bash his head into a wall, but he begins to expect the small snippets of information. Before he knows it, he collects them like rocks in his pocket. He can't say why. At first, they were extraneous pieces of information that he promptly forgot, indulging Alek and his potential, future endeavors. Nowadays, he feeds off them, and he can't explain how they are now suddenly like rare treats.

He tends to become angry with himself after the fact. He's not courting her—Alek is. And why would he want to court her, anyway? Oh, that's right, he doesn't. He doesn't feel anything, and he hasn't felt anything for quite a while.

Except for the hope, his mind betrays him, occasionally, reminding him of how it burns a hole in his skin, damning him, and yet not altogether awful. The mere fact that he doesn't think it's awful _makes _it awful.

He sometimes goes to the brothels, takes a whore, all of the cliché things to pleasure the flesh, but he only does it twice before it can become a habit, and it feels hollow when the deeds are done. He feels a bit ashamed afterwards. He's only caught in the act of it once, when he arrives back to his rooms, with the stink of smoke and lager on his clothes. Rhoam and Dal—the unmarried ones who also partake in that kind of thing—slap him on the back as if they're proud of him. The sentiment seems empty as they laugh and pry him for details, lugging him back to the sitting room to play cards.

"She has a severe way about her, though, doesn't she?"

Alek again, contemplating furthering his courtship. Hans sighs. They're riding horses to the farms, today, checking to see how the root vegetables are faring. A previous batch had fallen ill to a blight.

"A little," Hans says.

"Her hair…I wonder what it feels like between the fingers."

Hans wonders what's taken over his brother. "Are you even hearing yourself?"

Alek lifts his hands up in a defensive position. "Just because you can't feel anything but selfish desire and greed doesn't mean you have to mock me."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm sure it feels like any other girl's hair, if any of them actually let you within a five mile radius."

"Don't be mad. Just because you have to take it up in a brothel."

Hans grimaces. He'll never live it down. "Be wary. She doesn't like being touched. She'll impale you, probably."

Alek's brows shoot up. "I'm not you, remember?"

"Lucky you."

And yet, even with all their back and forth banter, Alek asks Hans something Hans didn't see coming. He asks him to sail to the Enchanted Forest with him.

"I'm going to see her for the first time since the Midwinter Solstice," Alek says. "You're the only one who isn't busy this time of year—"

Hans snorts. He's never busy at any time of the year.

"—and you're the only one who likes the outdoors as much as me. Get out, ya? Besides, you won't be missed, here."

"I appreciate the observation," he answers sourly.

In the end, he agrees, because anything to get away from the monotony or the purposelessness is a reprieve, a gift. Internally, he should not want to see Elsa ever again.

But as they sail to the forest, the waves beating against the hull of the ship, Hans closes his eyes to sleep. He sees her piercing stare behind his eyelids, the dark lining of lipstick against pale skin, every night of the journey.

When they dock, they are greeted by a large group of tribal members. Elsa stands further back along the bank, surrounded by men with spears who seem to be her guards. The tribal men who greet them as they walk off the ship detain Hans while the rest of the crew continues on. It's a precautionary measure wherever he goes, but most specifically because anywhere Elsa or Anna are, protection is of the utmost importance.

Hans understands it, even though it chafes him. He'll never _like _it, at any rate, but if he squints and tilts his head at it, he can take it as a compliment. They still think he's dangerous and capable. That shouldn't amuse him as much as it does.

They ask for him to leave his hook attachment on the ship. He unbuckles it and complies, stowing it away. After his family realized he was completely without his porcelain hand, they tried to customize another one for him. He refused so adamantly they gave him something that was more useful.

He's still not sure if they were mocking him when they bestowed him with a hook. They might as well have told him he'd be a pirate. Next would be his leg, and they could give him a wooden peg for it. Then he'd lose an eye, just for the hell of it to finish the ensemble.

Hans watches as Alek greets Elsa with all the primed manners of a prince. Elsa bows gracefully and smiles at him. Alek says something, possibly charming or stupid, and Elsa reacts how he wants her to. She laughs.

After a moment, their eyes catch and her smile falls into a sober line. It's funny, he thinks, how simply existing can take away all her good humor.

The rest of the crew greets Elsa and the rest of the tribal members. Most of them give Hans wary glances. They are all armed in one way or another, some of their arms crossed. They all look like an impenetrable fortress surrounding their queen.

"Hans," Elsa greets, also bowing to him.

"Elsa," he returns, also bowing. "It's…" he almost says, good to see you. He's not sure how true it is. Actually, no, he knows how true it is, but it is most certainly an unwise thing to say. "A pleasure."

They are all very formal with one another. Alek and Elsa quickly leave them all, finding their own refuge to talk privately. Hans watches them go before turning towards the rest of his crew. The chieftain accommodates them and volunteers to give them a tour and to teach them of the practices of the forest.

It's a formality, but a good distraction. When Elsa and Alek arrive back to the camp, dinner is cooking in a few large pots over multiple fires.

Most converse with each other freely. Hans is more reticent, listening to the chatter, asking few questions here and there about customs, hunting, the training of the warriors. They seem pleased he's interested.

Elsa asks him one single question all night.

"Hans," she ventures. "How are you?"

Such a simple question, and yet so full of weight. How are you?

He's not sure he knows.

"I'm alive," he answers. "How are you?"

Her brow raises at him, and he can see the stare—the one that pierces and hooks, just like his new appendage. "I'm very well, thank you."

That's that. They don't speak for another day.

She finds him on the ridge overlooking the blasted dam. Old wreckage lingers along the foundations, and the edges are uneven. It looks like the giants had taken a bite out of the construct, and in a way, they had. The waters are deep blue and still. The sun is beginning to ride low on the horizon, tinging the gentle, sweeping currents a rich orange.

"Alek told me you were coming, and I was a little surprised," she says, coming to sit beside him.

A ball of anxiety rolls up his stomach. It's the same feeling he had on the balcony—and on the bench in Arendelle's courtyard.

"He asked," he shrugs. "I like sailing, and I'd never been here."

She stares at his profile. "How are you, really?"

"I don't know," he says. It shocks him that answer came out. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. He runs his fingers along the puckering skin that covers the end of his forearm. "This is a beautiful place. You were right. It…breathes."

Her face slackens with incredulity. "You remember that?"

"Was I not supposed to?"

"No, I just…" she shakes her head. "I thought you'd be too drunk."

He should have been. He should have forgotten. But he hadn't. He couldn't.

"When you talked to me like a human being? Underneath the eyes of your mother? No," he says. "I was so in shock, it was branded in my brain."

She laughs a little. "I'm glad, then. I saw your new hand."

"It's a bit rough around the edges, but it fits."

"I like it. Do you ever accidentally cut yourself with it?"

"All the time. It's embarrassing. Haven't cut any necks, though."

"That's for the best, definitely."

They're quiet for a while, listening to the whistle of the wind through the silver birch trees.

"Are you going to say yes?" he asks, eventually, when he gains enough courage—or recklessness.

He doesn't expand on it, but he doesn't have to. She understands, contemplating the question and looking out to the sea.

"Your brother is a good man. He's a gentleman. He's polite."

"Shocking, I know."

"He's also intelligent. Handsome. Doting."

"I'm not quite sure how we're related."

Her lips tilt up. "I want to marry for love. My parents did. Anna did. I feel like I need some determining factor to know. Maybe another life or death experience, some daring journey with a dashing hero."

"That's asking a lot."

She sighs, leaning back on her hands. "It's hard to know after two days."

"You've been writing for months."

"Oh," she says. "It's different with letters. You can't hear the voice. You can't see the face." She looks at him.

"True, you can tell a lot with face to face conversation, but who has the time for that?" he asks, a bit facetiously. "He always talked to me about your letters. He's quite infatuated, I think."

"Really?"

Hans nods. "I know as much about you as he does. Indigo. Lily-of-the-valley. Your favorite stew. That's probably a strange admission."

If she's disgusted by the thought of him knowing her personal information, she doesn't show it. "Is that why you're here? Moral support for your brother, because you know the letters?"

Hans shrugs. "He asked. I accepted. Anything to get away from home."

It's a partial truth, but it is a truth. He can't rightly say he's there because he knows she likes climbing trees and riding her water horse in the evening, when the water is a slab of black tile. Then again—he's never been a good person. That bleeds into never being a good brother.

It's the hope she gave him, he thinks. It's stained everything else. It's festered into a colony of maggots inside him, eating him up. It's all in his mind, too. He's developed a narrative of a profound strangeness. He wanted to kill her once from the overwhelming greed running in his veins. Now, he wants to know what her hair feels like between his fingers. He'll blame his brother for that thought.

"Okay," she says slowly. "Regardless, I'm glad you came."

His brows furrow, and the hope will kill him. He knows it will. "Really?"

She nods, smiling. "I've been wondering what you look like, nowadays. If you've changed. At least you're not drinking bourbon."

He laughs abruptly. "No, no bourbon this time. I still hate happiness, though."

"You have a beard, now."

He rubs at it, almost feeling self-conscious. How does she do that? Make him feel—insecure? With one look, one measly glance.

"I got tired of cutting myself with a razor."

"Don't you have butlers for that kind of thing?"

"Sometimes, I think they want to slit my throat, so, no."

Elsa shakes her head, but she seems amused. They fall into a companionable silence, until finally, finally Hans says, "Alek is a good guy." And it sounds like there's a _but _at the end that he doesn't say.

She looks at him, expectant for him to continue. He clears his throat.

"It doesn't mean you have to say yes. A lot of guys are decent, but if they're not your type of decent, then they're not," he says, avoiding her gaze.

"Is this why you came? To give me permission to say no?"

His brows pinch. "No. Not permission. Just…"

How does he say it? He's a selfish bastard. He keeps imagining her and Alek walking off into the woods. He imagines Alek being nice and wonderful and everything Hans is not, and wishing for the impossible.

"What?"

He shakes his head. "Choose him. He's great."

He stands and nearly runs away from the sunset and her thick wisps of platinum hair and her dark eyelids and pale face.

* * *

She's perceptive. He knows it, and he fears she knows exactly what he was trying not to say.

She finds him on his ship in the late evening, after dinner. Alek is sleeping in the camps. His legs dangle off the deck. She comes and sits beside him, and he inhales a deep breath. The water here is different. It's bright and crystal and clean. It isn't harsh and briny and gritty like the kind in the Colonies.

"You gave me hope," he says. "Too much, I think. I'm poisoned forever."

"Don't be so dramatic," she says. "Also, that's not my fault. I was only being decent to you."

"In a world full of people who love to be indecent to me, and me to them, I guess I had forgotten what it was like," he says, shaking his head. "I'm…" he wants to say _sorry_, but it's lodged somewhere between his stomach and his throat like heartburn.

"You're being very indecent now, Hans. He's your brother. I'm courting him, and he's courting me. You…" she trails, huffing a breath. "This is not how it works."

"I know how this works," he says. He closes his eyes. "Why are you here? Just let me be. Leave me alone."

She cocks her head at him. "That sounds familiar."

"It seems like déjà vu. If only I had a bourbon bottle, it would be a replay."

"Oh, Hans," she says, sounding like pity.

He scowls. "Sure, feel sorry for me. I don't care, but I don't want it. Go back to Alek."

"You know, I don't think you're all that indecent."

"Then you'd be the first."

"You're good at that. Deflecting."

"It's like how you hate touching people. I hate getting close to them. What a pair we'd make, then."

"Why do you hate getting close to them?"

That's a sore point he hasn't visited in a long time. He sighs and hits his forehead against the railing. Telling her wouldn't matter. She'd only have another piece of him in her pocket, which she doesn't care about, not like he cares about all his pieces of her. Useless pieces, just as useless as he's been.

"Because they always end up disappointed and angry. Realizing they don't want to have me in their circles." He glances down to his palm. "It was more of a childhood thing. Just kind of stuck."

She places a palm on his forearm and he flinches. "You hate touching people."

"I'm getting better at it. The same goes for you—if you don't try it, you can't get better at it, either."

"Why would I want to get better at it?"

"Because it bothers you," she says gently. "And you're here, opening up to me, because I think you want to be close to me."

He grumbles. "Please go back to my brother."

"I haven't decided if he's my type of decent, Hans."

The words spark that stamped out flame of hope—it suddenly blazes to life. Then he realizes how ridiculous he is. He is simultaneously disgusted and annoyed with himself.

"Great. We're here for another few days. Should give you plenty of time to decide."

She frowns a bit at him, he stares out to the sea, and they are silent for the rest of the time they sit beside one another.

* * *

Hans liberates any and all ponderous thinking and invests in the culture of the Northuldra tribe. Ryder, one of the younger and eager members, shows him the lesser known pathways of the forest, the maws of caves they call their homes and private rooms when needed, the river that winds toward the Northern Sea to the shrine of untapped magic.

"Only Elsa goes there," he tells him. "She can tell you more about it, if you ask. It is hard for me to describe her stories on my own. Honeymaren is better at that."

He shows Hans the trail to the giant, rock trolls, and he tells him of how they sleep in the lazy stream surrounded by cliff faces. He tells Hans about the crackle of magic along the forest floor, where it almost feels like it zaps into your feet, ricocheting into your bloodstream.

"It isn't easy to explain until you feel it for yourself," Ryder says. "Then you'll know exactly what I mean."

The last place he shows him is the wooded landing where most of the reindeer linger, live, and spend their leisure time. Their grounds consist of this landing, similar to a cattle pasture. Hans thinks of the wild boars of the Colonies, roaming along the western fields with their tusks glinting in the summer sun.

"This is where we propose to the gentlewomen," Ryder says, a bit bashfully. "I…showed your brother this place, yesterday. He seemed very interested. It's pretty extravagant, and only Kristoff failed at getting the yes from Anna, but mostly because he accidentally asked our chief…"

Hans raises a brow. Ryder blusters.

"It's a long story. Our chief wasn't amused, though."

The place gives Hans the creeps. Mostly because it's deeply beautiful. The sunlight dapples through the trees in a sheaf of golden luminescence. The circular landing mimics an altar, a stage. It beckons with lightly blooming flowers in pinks, oranges, and whites. The scent is heavy with the sweet, sharp fragrances of late summer.

Alek is not very imaginative. This place is perfect for him.

Suddenly, the whole day's exploit of distraction is shattered into a billion pieces. Hans is struck with the scenes of proposal, the reindeer all around, bouquets of flowers, the buzzing green of the forest floor, the shine of the silver birch trees.

And Hans doesn't even _like _her that much.

Hans waits for the news. He waits and waits and wishes for alcohol and then waits some more. He thinks about going to the canal of rock giants to see if they'll pluck him up like a berry from a bush and eat him.

Instead, Alek and Elsa return from the forest to the clearing with the tribe members and crew members, all seated around the fire, some sitting on tree stumps, some lounging together, chatting and laughing. Their faces are carefree, others whispering in rumors, wondering and contemplating the most fascinating thing to grace the forest since—well, probably a hundred years. Elsa's love life.

Hans is bewildered when Alek and Elsa announce their amiable goodbyes. Alek claps Hans on the shoulder, rounds up the rest of the crew, and tells them they are to depart in the morning. Hans stares at Alek until their eyes meet, and Alek gives a small smile and a shrug.

Stupid Alek. Foolish Alek. How could he do this? How could he not…how could he?

It isn't until evening when Hans rounds on Alek alone, along the cliff that Hans had found the first day, overlooking the broken dam.

"What happened?" Hans asks.

Alek shrugs again. It is infuriating.

"Nothing," he says.

"Nothing?"

"We talked. We got to know each other. She was timid, actually. It was like she was uncomfortable talking about herself. It didn't make her any less beautiful, though."

Hans frowns, taking a seat beside him. "No proposals?"

Alek looks at the ground. "No."

"Why?"

Hans admits to himself that he's waiting for Alek to say _you._ To look at him with the disdain he occasionally sees from his mother and father, from Rhoam, from Frederik. From everyone. To feel his wrath directed at him for ruining yet another life, another potential for happiness. Hans is ready for it. He's used to it, and he doesn't think he was born to do anything else.

"We…don't fit," he answers, eventually. His eyes are sad, but Hans wonders if he's only sad because of the lost prospect at finding that elusive _love of his life. _Hans has never really believed in that, finding a person tailor-made to fit like a suit jacket. Alek has always believed, however, and most of his pursuits have fallen short. He's always been a romantic, and Hans admires his brother's persistence in continuing to believe.

"How do you know?"

Why does Hans keep asking?

Alek sighs. "Eventually, you learn how to figure out when someone is interested in you. She's a bit…withdrawn. When you like someone, that's not how you act. You want to be invested in them. You want to listen."

"Not everyone does that, Alek. Remember she's isolated herself most of her life. You should give her time."

Why is he trying to encourage him? Hans wants to kick himself, and yet…

"Sure," Alek says. "I know. It's just…not the time."

And yet, maybe, Hans wants to make up for trying to steal Elsa away from his brother. What a laugh. How come he's finally feeling like trying to be a decent human being?

"Alright," Hans relents, and they watch the silky smooth surface of the water below them.

Hans seeks out Elsa later that evening, once everyone is sleeping. It is difficult to find her in the dark. She is nowhere obvious, not along the cliff, not sitting near the smoldering embers of fire, not sitting on the bow of the ship. She is in none of the caves, nor is she in the reindeer landing. Hans takes a torch into the deeper parts of the forest, and he begins to feel that zap from the dirt—plunging through his hiking boots like wet paper, stabbing the bottom of his foot. His bones vibrate, his forearms crackle. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. He understands what Ryder meant. It is hard to describe without feeling it.

He follows it until he comes to the wide, open expanse of a rocky bank, leading into the darkened blanket of sea. It seems endless in the night.

Elsa sits along the soft grass, before the land turns into rock and sand. He comes to stand beside her.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"I asked first."

She is silent. Finally, she says, "I feel guilty."

"For what?"

"Your brother." She picks up a stray rock and throws it toward the water. It ends short, embedding into the sand.

"Your heart is too big."

"Yours is too small."

"You feel every little thing."

"You don't feel enough."

Hans takes a seat beside her, grabbing another rock. His sails into the water with his left-handed throw. It isn't as wobbly as his porcelain hand throw from months prior. Progress? Maybe.

"While we're telling each other our faults, I should confess," he states. "The thought of you marrying my brother made me ill."

She blinks. Her face is slackened with confusion before it takes on the hard look of someone who has been slighted.

"What are you saying, Hans? Are you telling me you were trying to ensure I would reject his proposal? Is that why you're here? Was this all one of your twisted plots?"

Hans smiles a little. She's right, in a way. He had hoped his presence would keep them from going through with it—and why? Why should his presence mean anything at all?

"No, I wasn't trying to ensure anything," he says. "I was only…hoping."

"Hoping."

"Listen, I know I'm a very complex and intriguing character, so this may be hard to understand."

She rolls her eyes. "Not _that _complex."

"I wasn't plotting this time," he says, softly. The stillness of night sucks his words into the abyss of it. "I don't know what I was trying to do."

"To think, you don't even have bourbon this time."

He smiles. They look at one another. They look away.

"I'm sorry you found my brother lacking," he says.

"Are you really?"

"Mostly. He wants a fairytale. I think the lure of a magical queen was too much to pass up." Hans shakes his head. "He's always made me mad, that way. Believing in something so…unobtainable."

"Love isn't unobtainable."

"Maybe not, but what he wants…" Hans shakes his head. "You know what, the more I think about it, the less sorry I feel."

Elsa sighs. "Regardless of how you feel, he's still well-meaning. And it wasn't just me. It was him, too. I could tell. We weren't…quite right."

Hans can't hide his surprise. "Really?"

"Really. I think we both wanted something different."

"He's still an idiot."

"Why? Because he's your brother?"

He watches the sea spray whip her hair into wild, random ringlets around her face like some platinum medusa.

"Yeah. Because he's my brother."

They both watch the waves lapping along the bank like the tongue of a dog. Eventually, she says, "Ryder tells me you're a quick study."

Hans frowns in contemplation. "I've never been called that before."

"What? Smart?"

"Well, I've always thought I was smart. Everyone else? Not really. Made me think I might not be."

"He told me you caught on quickly to the culture here. You asked a lot of questions. He gave you the tour that is not often given. Though, that is partly because we don't have many visitors."

"It's…" Hans pauses. "This place is interesting. Intriguing. Everything is different, here. Life, the mere chore of surviving, how you all treat one another…" he trails, feeling a bit vulnerable with his words.

"That's why I like it," Elsa says. "The magic notwithstanding. There's a rhythm to life here that feels deeper than the one in the major cities."

He watches her side profile. They're leaving tomorrow morning, he thinks. Might as well try it, now, because no matter what, he'll be able to make a great escape. He'll run like he always does. The thought fills him with a small prickling of shame, but it's not enough to keep him from holding on to the thought of getting away from all of this. Of another failure.

"The second night, on the boat…" he tries. "You were right. I…want to be close to you. That's why I'm here. I learned all those other things about you through Alek's letters, and I realized I want to know the other things—what you hate, how you talk to your tribe, how you wield your ice. I want to know the things no one else does. I want to know..." he trails, suddenly embarrassed at his outburst. He wishes, momentarily, to take it all back. "All because you were nice to me."

"At the send-off," she says, so quiet. It's a murmur, almost hidden by the sounds of the low rippling waves. "You kissed my hand."

"The common custom."

"You looked at me differently," she says. "You said, 'May this new year bestow upon you great fortune and abundance.' Then you smiled at me, and it was real."

"Of course it was real," he says, not understanding her tone and her confusion. "I meant it."

"At the time, I wasn't sure."

Hans smiles wanly. It makes sense. Why would she trust him? It inspires him to answer, "I wanted to do more than kiss your hand."

Her eyes widen. "What?"

"Who knew all it took was for you to lead me around like a dog in a maze." He laughs. "To smile at me. To be nice. To make me believe that things could be better. That's all it took to make me want to…try more. All it took to make me want to kiss you. To know what your dark lips felt like. That's what I wanted when I kissed your hand. I wondered if you felt it, and I hoped Alek would give up on trying to court you. But he didn't, and you didn't."

He looks over to her, turning his body. "It's stupid. It's all so stupid. I wanted to kill you, once. You said you'd never forgive me. I had been licking my wounds and trying to avoid _myself,_ but that's impossible. I was trying to avoid consequences. Now, I try to face them. I'm still angry and I'm still not the best with my left hand, but..." he grits his teeth. "May I kiss you tonight? Just...only tonight."

She stares at him for so long, he wonders if she had forgotten the question. Had his almost-murderer asked him the same question, he wonders if he would have simply ignored it, too.

"...no," she finally says.

Hans winces. His face pinches together, and it feels like he's been impaled by a harpoon.

"I don't know what to think of you, Hans. One moment, I want to trust all the words you say. I want to understand you, still, because I don't know you. Then I hear Anna's warning words, the way she nearly died for me. And you're..."

He pulls himself up to stand, unable to face the humiliation, the rejection. He wants to run away from the feeling stewing in his heart. Funny, truly, how long it takes to feel nothing, and how quickly it is to feel everything.

"Spare it," he says, clipped and stern. "I don't care to hear what you think of me anymore."

"Hans—"

He stands, his boots padding softly against the grass even though his legs are heavy. He breaks into the line of the forest. What had he expected? What does he even want?

She catches up to him in short time, gripping his right wrist. It's so near his stump, he bristles and jumps. The shadow sensations ripple down his arm, and he can almost feel the chill of her fingers in the ones he no longer has.

"Hans," she breathes, pulling him back. "Stop running away."

"No," he says, stubbornly, continuing his trek. Immediately, he almost topples over. She's pinned his ankles to the ground with ice. He groans in anger. "Now, what do you want from me?"

"The send-off," she says. "You looked at me like how I thought you would look at me when you arrived. Arrogant. Self-assured. Not feeling any ounce of guilt or wrong-doing. What changed?"

He blinks at her. "You know, already. My unwanted hope. That's what changed."

"From one evening?"

He expels a breath. "Maybe you have more magic than you think, Elsa."

She stares at him, holding his eyes in her own. She tentatively brings up her hand and runs her fingers along his cheek. He tries not to recoil before he finds himself wanting to press into the cradle of her hand.

"I don't know you like you say you know me," she says.

All the rocks in his pocket. They clang and jangle against one another, weighing him down, anchoring him in front of her along with her ice and her fingers. "Do you want to?"

"I must be crazy," she says. "I don't trust you, but I want to. I've seen how you feel, even though you claim you can't. I've seen you struggle and run and cower. I want to know what makes you, Hans."

He can hardly breathe. "I told you I'm not decent. I'm selfish. I try to steal my brother's prospects because I envy each one of them and their unshackled lives." The words spill out of him from somewhere in the deep trenches of his ribs. He doesn't know he believes this so acutely until they come out of his mouth. "I am what you think I am."

"You're more than what I think you are," she says. She leans forward and kisses his bearded cheek. He's never regretted his facial hair until this moment, only feeling the pressure of her lips and nothing more.

"That's a bold statement," he whispers, his eyes chasing her retreating lips.

"What can I say? I'm a bold kind of lady."

He gives her the barest smile. It takes him a moment to realize he is no longer stuck to the ground with ice but he feels rooted all the same.

"I like bold ladies. They frighten me."

She smiles back. "Good." She takes his hand. "Come on. Let's go back to camp."

To his ears, it sounds like, _let's go home._ For once, the word doesn't sound like a tether or an anchor or a prison.

It sounds like something bigger than hope. It sounds like freedom.


End file.
